Herptile Spotlight Special: Uncle Vin and his Turtle Morphs

Today, we have a special post🙂

It’s been a while since I last wrote Herptile Spotlight. The last time was on July 2012. This time I am not the one doing the writing. I interviewed the owner of Turtlemorphs.com. From the interview, we can learn a bit about turtle morph.

Uncle Vin has kindly allowed us showing his photos on instagram here, so that you can see the beauty of turtle morph.

Here are the Q & A interview I had with Uncle Vin🙂

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Hi Uncle Vin. We found you and your amazing turtles on instagram but we hardly know anything about you. Can you please tell us a bit about you?

My name is Vin, I’m the CEO and founder of TURTLEMORPHS.COM. I’m based out of California (west coast) unlike many large turtle breeders which are from the east coast (their weather is always nicer than where I live). I first started collecting turtles as a hobby, then later found out about special colored turtle morphs that existed. I then begin learning about the many different types of color morphs and begin spending a lot of money in purchasing them for part of my collections. The hobby later turned into a business as my collection got extremely big over the years. Now I breed and work only with turtles that have special color mutations, such as albino red eared sliders.

You have a site called turtlemorphs.com. We have seen the site but I would like you to tell everyone what is the site about.

Yes, I do own the website turtlemorphs.com. I use to have the site open for public sales with all types of rare turtles, but eventually closed it to only my VIP customers. Since the turtles I have for sale are very rare, I already have a huge customer waiting list for all types of turtle morphs and I prefer to sell to my good returning customers rather then accepting new customers that I know nothing about. I will accept new customers anytime, but it all depends on how serious the customer is in purchasing the expensive turtles.

How many do you collect now? The ones not for sale?

I have over 100 turtles right now, and will have more during the turtle season. They can all be for sale, but it depends if I get bored of the collection and want new turtles.

What is a morph turtle?

A morph turtle is basically any turtle that appears unusual and out of the ordinary. That can be different colors, extra or missing limbs, and just anything that is not “normal” is a “morph in my opinion.

Why are they so expensive?

Prices can get very expensive depending on how rare the turtle is. The more rare they are, the more expensive it is. A turtle can easily cost an average of $500 or more!

And how much is the most expensive you have ever sold?

I cannot really comment on the most expensive one I sold as it is confidential between my customers. But turtles can easily sell for over $10,000 USD.

Where did you get them?

I get them from private farms and other breeders who contact me right away when there is something new and rare. I purchase all types of turtle morphs! The rarer the better!

Will they change their color as they get old? I mean I used to be bright golden but as I get older my color becomes darker.

Some morphs do change colors as they become adults, and can look much better as they get older. For example, a pastel red ear slider may not look as colorful as hatchlings, but as they grow larger in size, the colors could become much more brighter. In some cases, other colors can show up which were not there before!

Do they live as long as normal turtle?

Color morphs are just like normal turtles in terms of their longevity, absolutely not much difference other than colors. If it was a mutation such as a two-headed turtle, those really depend on how the turtles internal organs were developed, as some are not perfect and can lead to complicated problems as they mature.

Which one is your favorite?

My favorites are the caramel pink red ear sliders. Its safe for me to say that is many of my customers favorite pick. They have the nicest pink skin and light yellow shell! Cute as a baby, and very impressive looking as adults! They are definitely becoming very popular now, even with the high price tag.

Hatchling Caramel Pink RES

Juvenile Caramel Pink RES

Adult Caramel Pink RES

Thank you so much for spending your time to explain about your collection, Uncle Vin🙂

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Here are some of Uncle Vin’s collections. Most of them are from my species, Red Eared Slider. (Click on the photo to see the original photo)

All these photos are taken from Uncle’s Vin Instagram called vmatheboss.

Normal Albino RES

Mohawk RES

Pastel RES

Snow Albino RES

Super Golden phase hybrino RES

Clown Eastern Painted Turtle

Albino Chinese Soft Shell Turtle

Albino Hieroglyphic Cooter

Hypo Map Turtle

Ornate Diamond Back Turtle

And…. Papoe’s albino version🙂

Albino Pink Belly Short Necked Turtle

Some people in redearslider.com told me that I am also a morph (but not as pretty and rare as the above) because I have lighter color than normal RES.

I hope you enjoy the interview and the photos🙂 (there are 13 morphs here so I am sharing this in Thursday Thirteen)

Thank youuuu soooo much Uncle Vin. Mommy said she wish she has one of your collection but they are too expensive for her. I wouldn’t mind having another sibling but it would be tough competing with those beauties😉

Fascinating pictures and a very informative interview. I truly had no idea there were turtle breeders out there or that they were producing such interesting varieties. I can see how collecting turtles could be a lot of fun – like you though they sound pricey to me too🙂 I really enjoyed this post!

Taking care of a turtle is quite expensive. We need to give them proper habitat, a tank full of water, a water filter, a heater, a basking are, etc. But the turtle itself is very easy to handle and full of surprise too😉

How cool. I have a friend that breeds bearded dragons. This kind of reminds me of that because he has a lot of unusual colors and textures with his lizards. This must be a fairly new thing because I had not seen any morphs before when I worked with my exotic vet.

[…] We are very happy to have many super nice human who were willing to spend their time to share about their pets in our new feature post called Share Your Pets (and also Uncle Vin whom we met in Instagram who had shared his Morph Turtles collection) […]